It's just about that time of the year again. The part where you take a step back and evaluate the meaning of these minutes that have come to fill the spaces in between January and December. I have to admit I kind of considered shooting past this post in attempts of avoiding being too cliche, but in the end decided that there are enough times in my life where I don't sit down to appreciate what I have and where I'm going for fear of being mundane and there's no reason to be ashamed that I follow an established benchmark of progress. So here I sit.
It didn't hit me until the way home just how much has happened this year. I think back to last New Years and Ruby's drunk escapade at Ashley's in Bellingham and I can hardly believe it is the same person let alone year. This year I graduated university, I traveled the Mediterranean, I moved halfway across the world and sidestepped a major life plan for the first time in my life--following a whim that had no other explanation other than it felt right to do. And all along the way I've met amazing people who have helped to open up and own who I am, and who hopefully I have been able to touch in return. Not to mention, I successfully completed my new years resolution of keeping up with this blog. Overall, I feel pretty proud.
But I know I'm far from being over. If there's anything this year, these friends, these loves, these places have taught me is that I am only human and far from being a perfect one. That there is so much work still left for me to be done, and while that is scary and hard and oftentimes too much for me to swallow I know I have to keep on trying. Because there is no one who is going to do it for me and if there is a reason for my unhappiness it is because I'm not fighting for it. Because I haven't taken these moments to step back and value what I have in my life to its fullest extent.
It's been hard this holiday season as I focused a lot on myself and how the season should measure up to my ridiculous expectations, sometimes at the expense of actually feeling Christmastime joy. And now I sit here and think I wish I gave more, I wish I said more. I wish I called more, I wish I loved more, I wish I bought less. But most of all I wish that I had stopped thinking about myself and being away from culture and home and more on how blessed I truly am and owning the decisions I make, realizing home is a place I can take and make wherever I am in the world. Because too often I forget to tell myself how much I love my life. How happy I really am. And it's times like this that I am reminded of the steps still left to be taken in my progress.
I'm so blessed. Truly, I wish I shed more tears over how thankful I was for my health, for my friends, for sustaining health, for my family, for the fact that I can come home to a warm house and people who love me. And I'm thankful for all of the privilege that I don't even realize I have sometimes and take for granted, like being able to travel and gain higher education. Sometimes I feel I need to see those sentences in writing just so I know they are real.
And so I sit here on this last day of the year, writing a post that hasn't decided whether it would rather wear a party hat or an apology draped over its head. And maybe that's what this liminal space of New Years Eve is supposed to be--a mix of the two. A realization of our limitations and faults, and a promise to do better. A spirit of awe and love for what tools we do have to work with, and a plan to continue to progress. And most of all a thankfulness in our heart for all that we have.
But this isn't a place to dwell. This isn't a place to build a home on a foundation of "I wish I" and "What ifs." It's a place for me to sit myself down and be happy. Be healthy. Be loved. Be everything that I already am and have with a full consciousness about it. To try better, to be better. To be actively engaged in living life for the sole purpose of being born into it and trying to make that statement as loud, proud, and full of vitality as possible. This is a place to celebrate what I have done and use that momentum and confidence to make life for me and others around me even better.
So this is my synthesis of this reflection and resolution space: I love who I am. And I love that in a year I will look back and hopefully still love the person that I am. And I hope that I will always continue to write down these lessons and experiences to remind me of that journey and of the path still left to walk.
Happy New Year, friends.
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